it's the little things that count

One microliter.

Do you know how much that is? It's 1/1000 of a milliliter. Can't picture a milliliter? A milliliter of water is the "size" of a centimeter cubed. That is not very big. Now, divide that into 1000 parts. That's a microliter.

That's not much at all. Shouldn't matter a single bit, right?

...Wrong.

It is the failure of me to add that one microliter that has made my arrival at the lab at 2:30a.m. a complete and utter waste of time and has deprived me of precious sleep. As part of The Big Experiment being carried out this week (starting yesterday, hopefully culminating tomorrow), I spent 16 hours at the lab, grabbed some LuLu's, let the very bored (made a lovely mess by throwing her litter pan around) and upset (much snorting at the Hand that Feeds) rabbit (at least she's not outright ill) out for about a half hour, and went to bed for a mere three hours. Now I'm back, and as I was working on Step One of the 2:30a.m. part of The Big Experiment, I realized...I had forgotten to add one microliter of monensin to the samples I was working with. Which renders the entire experiment completely and utterly useless.

Smart. I am quite sure I can accurately blame this on the fatigue that comes from 15.5 hours of being at the lab and lack of sleep the night before. But it doesn't make it any more enjoyable. Plus, now I'm stuck at the lab, because I need to be back here at 5:30a.m. anyhow to start working on today's regularly scheduled part of The Big Experiment, so it's not worth driving home, trying to sleep for one hour, and driving back. (Plus, I might lose my parking space. ...AND it's totally freezing outside.)

I'm going to go find a corner in which to curl up...

Doesn't it make you want to pursue a PhD in microbiology?